My Story

From a school sports day to the Olympic wall.

I was born in La Rochelle, France, on 30 January 2005, and moved to New Zealand when I was three. Home is Tauranga, in the Bay of Plenty — which turned out to matter more than anyone could have guessed, because Tauranga is where New Zealand’s only world-class speed climbing wall would later be built.

Third place, first try

My first ever climbing competition was at the AIMS Games, the big intermediate-school sports tournament held in Tauranga. I placed third — in my first attempt at the sport. That was the moment I knew. I started climbing seriously, and in 2019 I found the discipline that fit the way I’m built: speed. Not solving a puzzle slowly. Racing straight up, flat out.

The 2022 decision

At the start of 2022 I joined the New Zealand Speed Team and committed to specialising. I used that whole first season for exposure — my first World Cup in Jakarta, Youth Worlds in Dallas — learning how it feels to stand next to the fastest climbers on earth. I was nowhere near them yet. That was the point.

2023: the year everything changed

In August 2023, at the IFSC Youth World Championships in Seoul, I won gold in speed — the first gold medal any New Zealander had ever won at a world championships in any climbing discipline. Three months later in Melbourne I won the Oceania Olympic Qualifier, and alongside Sarah Tetzlaff became one of the first two climbers ever to qualify for the Olympic Games for New Zealand.

In February 2024, Sky Sport and the Halberg Awards named me Emerging Talent of the Year — an award previously given to athletes like Lydia Ko.

Paris, in three races

Paris 2024. Le Bourget climbing venue. Nineteen years old, New Zealand’s Olympian #1551 and the country’s first male Olympic climber.

Race one, seeding: 5.24 seconds — personal best, national record, 9th seed. Race two, elimination: drawn against Reza Alipour, the former world champion and former world record holder from Iran. I beat him by six hundredths with another personal best — 5.20 seconds, a new NZ and Oceania record. Race three, quarterfinal: Sam Watson of the USA, who had just broken the world record an hour earlier. Sam got me — he went on to prove he was the fastest man on a wall that week — and I finished my first Olympics 8th in the world.

Before Paris I told RNZ the truth about chasing him: “I versed him back in Dallas at Youth Worlds and I got my arse kicked. But I’ve been following in his footsteps.” In Paris the gap was four tenths. The whole project now is closing it.

Now: defending home turf, hunting LA28

Since Paris I’ve raced the NEOM Masters in Saudi Arabia (12th), the World Games in Chengdu (15th), World Cups across China, Indonesia, the USA, Poland and France, and the 2025 World Championships in Seoul. In February 2025 and again in February 2026 I won the Oceania title at home in Mount Maunganui, on the Blake Park wall I train on every day with my coach Rob Moore. Five-time national champion, three-time Oceania champion, and the Oceania record holder since 2023.

Away from the wall I’m studying finance at the University of Waikato, building partnerships with brands I actually use, and filming the Road to LA28 series. Mates call me Jules. The internet calls me NZ’s Spider-Man. I’ll answer to either.

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